You might not have noticed what Dinesh D’Souza had to say about athletes on Tuesday. Like many others, you might have been reviled by the conservative’s author tweets mocking student protesters, some of them survivors of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, to notice anything else.

“Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs,” he replied to a tweet that featured a picture of the teenagers crying after Florida lawmakers struck down a motion to vote on an assault weapons ban while the teens were in the gallery.

“Adults 1, kids 0,” he wrote in another tweet..

Earlier in his timeline, D’Souza replied to fellow conservative Matt Walsh’s tweet about another activist group: athletes who advocate for police reform in minority communities. Walsh dismissed most athletes’ opinions about political issues but defended their right to express them. D’Souza added this: “The point is that athletes, like actors, are some of the dumbest people on the planet & have little to contribute to any debate over ideas.”

It’s obvious trigger bait by a renowned troll, and people familiar with D’Souza’s track record know he performs the rhetorical equivalent of throwing dung against the wall to see if it sticks.

But the issue is, it does stick with some sports fans, their knee-jerk reflex to immediately shout down any athlete who dares to say something even remotely political — even if it’s off the clock, so to speak, and almost exclusively if an athlete’s opinion contradicts his own world views.

That’s what makes commentary such as Bears linebacker Sam Acho’s measured, thoughtful response to D’Souza so interesting, as athletes have been feeling out and finding their voice in an increasingly harsher climate.

“I can honestly say that this is one of the most foolish, sophomoric and narrowed thought processes I have ever read,” Acho replied to D’Souza. “Rash generalizations like these are merely a way to simplify your understanding of the things (and people) around you. I would challenge you to go a bit deeper.”

A few months ago, Acho, like a few of his teammates, seemed reluctant to talk about players who kneeled in protest during the national anthem. He was promoting his celebrity waiter charity night during a Tribune interview, and while he declined to give an opinion about Colin Kaepernick and the cause associated with the controversial quarterback, Acho did allow that athletes have the right to talk about social issues.

But when Texans owner Bob McNair compared player protests to “inmates running the prison” in November, Acho spoke up.

“So if you can be bold enough to make a statement like, ‘You can't have the inmates run the prison.’ Then obviously you're, No. 1, disconnected, No. 2, you're just outright prideful, and No. 3, I mean — I'm going to say it — but you’re just racist. Like, people are going to be mad that I say it, but it’s true,” Acho said on his podcast for faith-based magazine Relevant.

In January, Acho revealed in an onstage interview at Willow Creek Community Church in south Barrington that he and Bears Chairman George McCaskey had been having an ongoing dialogue about the issues behind the anthem protests. They’ve gone on police ride-alongs, a prison visit and a concert together.

In a pretaped video interview for the event, McCaskey said he told Acho, “Let’s talk about some of the broader issues. Let’s talk to people and face some uncomfortable truths,” according to a Daily Herald report.

“Sam and I talked about (how) there is a mistrust in the community of the police,” McCaskey said. “And there are a lot of good police officers trying to do a good job. So how do we build up that trust between the communities?”

That’s a remarkable overture between one player and one team chairman in the wake of what seemed like a cultural chasm between ownership and players in the wake of the McNair debacle.

It’s one example, and it doesn’t paint over systemic problems between the two groups or between races in America, but it’s a dialogue; it’s some small measure of progress — which makes screeds like D’Souza’s all the more repugnant and regressive, though you have to wonder about his true motives.

Athletes, particularly outspoken black athletes, have become a convenient target for pundits to gain instant virality on social media or cable news ratings. It’s probably no coincidence that D’Souza’s comments follow a few days after Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s “shut up and dribble” directive was aimed at LeBron James after the Cavaliers star criticized President Donald Trump.

Both commentators were classmates at Dartmouth College and were once engaged. Ingraham’s comments last week gained national attention, perceived by many as having racist undertones that she denied, then attempted to milk more from the uproar by inviting James to “play on her court,” her show, “The Ingraham Angle.”

So why wouldn’t D’Souza pull from the same playbook, especially when you could argue he taught Ingraham the playbook while at The Dartmouth Review? When he was editor, the off-campus conservative weekly outed gay classmates in an article and published an anti-affirmative action column in Ebonics, titled “Dis Sho Ain’t No Jive, Bro."

You certainly can’t expect any intellectual honesty from D’Souza to debate anthem protests or any other social justices, much less with strangers he dismisses as “the dumbest people on the planet” simply because their W2s list athlete as an occupation.

If players such as Acho are smart, and many who reach the professional ranks are, they won’t play D’Souza’s game — by allowing him to bully them from the conversation or baiting them into engaging him at his level, thus detracting from a serious dialogue.